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I enjoyed Dan Haar's recent column on ESPN [Aug. 25, Page 1, "It's Not Easy At Top For ESPN"]. However, ESPN must share some of the responsibility regarding negative outcomes seen in youth sports. Many kids today (and their parents) view sports as the most important thing in their lives. How do we know? Our obsession with sports has led to specialization, overuse injuries, hyper-competitiveness in young children (and their parents), carpetbaggers posing as personal coaches for 7-year-olds, PED use, deplorable behavior by parents on the sidelines, blurred lines regarding character development, a "win at all costs" mentality, the myth of the college athletic scholarship, and high school boards of education considering eliminating funding for high school sports.

J im Calhoun will be joining ESPN's college basketball coverage team this season, where he will get the chance to do what he does best and seems to enjoy most — talk basketball. Most of his work will be in the studio in Bristol, and we know one word that is not in the Calhoun vocabulary: boring. He'll be worth watching. Here's the OTF translation of what transpired regarding the NCAA and Geno Auriemma : It burnt somebody's backside that when Mo'ne Davis became a household name, she immediately identified UConn as her dream destination as, one imagines, many female athletes her age would do. Her connection with UConn got national attention, so someone complained.

ESPN reports : Louisville will join the Atlantic Coast Conference, becoming the sixth former Big East school to leave for the ACC, sources told ESPN. The ACC's presidents and chancellors voted to add the Cardinals Wednesday morning to replace Maryland, which will leave for the Big Ten in 2014. Read the complete story at www.espn.com .

Jim Calhoun will be joining ESPN's college basketball broadcast team. Calhoun, who retired as UConn coach in September 2012 after 26 seasons and three national championships, will do most of his work in Bristol, ESPN's home base, providing studio analysis, a network source, requesting anonymity, told The Courant. Calhoun, 72, will occasionally travel to games and contribute to "SportsCenter. " . The hiring was first reported by TheBigLead.com. Since retiring, Calhoun has worked at UConn in an advisory capacity, helping in fundraising and appearing at speaking engagements.

A New York Times story says the state of Connecticut has given ESPN, in Bristol, $260 million in state tax breaks and credits over the past 12 years (or $21.6 million a year). ESPN takes in $6 billion a year in subscriber fees alone. Should the state be so generous? Or will Connecticut lose the giant sports empire - and its thousands of jobs - if the tax breaks stop? Should the tax breaks be given to smaller companies instead? Or is ESPN a magnet for other sports media, like NBC Sports, which recently opened headquarters in Connecticut?

ESPN is producing its weekly "College GameDay" show at Gampel Pavilion Saturday, marking the first time the network broadcasts GameDay before a women's game. When: Saturday, 10-11 a.m. Doors open at 7:30. Admission: Free Parking: Free ESPN personalities: Rece Davis, Digger Phelps, Jay Bilas, Hubert Davis and Doris Burke. Of note: The first 750 fans receive a GameDay T-Shirt. One fan will participate in a mid-court shot contest sponsored by State Farm for a chance to win $17,500 ($1,000 consolation prize)

ESPN quietly keeps on growing. The Bristol-based all-sports network just cut the ribbon on its 17th building, a 139,000-square-foot structure that will house the graphics department, a transmission center and a 3-D research and development unit, among other uses. With nearly 880,000 square feet of space already, ESPN is planning to begin work on a 50,000-square-foot child care facility this spring. Although not completely immune to the recession (75 employees were laid off in Connecticut last year)

The Bristol-based sports dynasty ESPN took on a military look Wednesday as 30 smartly outfitted cadets from West Point Military Academy wallowed in sports heaven. The cadets, several of whom were involved in last year's Veteran's Day SportsCenter telecast from West Point, were ushered around ESPN studios, participated in a SportsNation taping and met SportsCenter co-hosts Josh Elliott and Hannah Storm.

ESPN reports: Stars from several different sports took to Twitter on Friday to try and cope with the school shooting in Connecticut, and the NFL asked each of its teams to observe a moment of silence before this weekend's games to pay respect to the victims. A man killed his mother at home and then opened fire inside the elementary school where she taught, slaying 26 people, including 20 children. The 20-year-old killer, carrying two handguns, then committed suicide at the school.

For the next eight weeks, ESPN will be taking its college basketball studio coverage on the road. Two new productions -- "College GameDay" and "Saturday Primetime" -- will make their debut Saturday at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs when Pittsburgh plays UConn. By the time Selection Sunday arrives March 13, ESPN will have visited some of college basketball's most famous arenas and rivalries: Saturday: Pittsburgh at UConn, 9 p.m. Jan. 29: Texas at Kansas, 9 p.m. Feb. 5: Notre Dame at Syracuse, 9 p.m. Feb. 12: Duke at Maryland, 9 p.m. Feb. 19: Mississippi State at Kentucky, 9 p.m. Feb. 26: Louisville at Memphis, 9 p.m. March 5: Texas at Oklahoma State, 9 p.m. March 12: ACC tournament

As of early Monday afternoon, Michael Sam, vying to become the first openly gay player in NFL hostory, was still without a job. After being cut by the St. Louis Rams on Saturday, Sam still had a chance to be claimed by another team or be signed to Rams' 10-player practice squad. So far, neither has happened, stirring up talk that despite everything said to the contrary, Sam's sexuality is a factor. One NFL player, Buffalo Bills center Eric Wood, put the blame on ESPN, which created controversy a week ago when one of their reporters did a story that talked about Sam's shower habits in the locker room.

Sports television network ESPN said on Wednesday it regrets a report that detailed the showering habits of St. Louis Rams defensive end Michael Sam, the first openly gay player to be drafted in the NFL. The Walt Disney Co-owned network received criticism on Tuesday after reporter Josina Anderson quoted an anonymous Rams player saying that Sam waited to take showers "as not to make his teammates feel uncomfortable. " "ESPN regrets the manner in which we presented our report," the company said in a statement.

UConn's season opener against Brigham Young will be televised by ESPN Friday night from Rentschler Field. Analyst Danny Kanell, who will be in the booth Friday, said the Huskies will have a difficult task against BYU. But Kanell, a former NFL quarterback, is curious to watch UConn's debut under first-year coach Bob Diaco. "I'm excited to see this weekend, to see the turnaround with Bob Diaco and see what he's implemented," Kanell said on a media conference call Tuesday. "I think they're going to have their hands full with a BYU team that's extremely talented and has a quarterback who might be a dark-horse contender, in Taysom Hill, for the Heisman Trophy.

National sensation Mo'Ne Davis may not have been able to duplicate her first start, but her presence on the mound Wednesday night led to the highest-rated Little League World Series telecast ever on ESPN. The 3.4 overnight rating, according to Nielsen on Thursday, is up 143 percent from last year's corresponding game between California and Connecticut, which drew a 1.4. The record telecast delivered a 16.3 rating in Las Vegas and a 14.9 rating in Philadelphia, both records for LLWS telecasts in those markets.

As skateboarders Mike Mo Capaldi and PJ Ladd rolled on stage performing different tricks for the Game of S.K.A.T.E. final, a group of children in yellow t-shirts stood up and shouted their names. In August heat, the event attracted a crowd of ESPN employees and their guests to the network's Bristol campus Friday. It was the first competitive sporting event ESPN has held at its headquarters. Affliated with the X Games, the competition had eight top world-class street skaters playing head-for-head, trick-for-trick, by the same rules as in the basketball game of H.O.R.S.E.

ESPN suspended Stephen A. Smith for one week on Tuesday for his comments made last week regarding the two-game suspension of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice after a domestic violence incident with his then fiancee. Smith's remarks were made on the ESPN program "First Take" on Friday. "Let's make sure we don't do anything to provoke wrong actions," Smith said, referencing the Rice incident that occurred last February in an Atlantic City, N.J., casino. Rice was arrested after video showed him dragging the unconscious woman out of an elevator.

When the women's NCAA Tournament begins this weekend, ESPN will engulf it, providing coverage of each of the 32 first-round games through some outlet. The network will not play favorites as the winners move forward to the regional finals and the Final Four April 4 and 6 in San Antonio. But ESPN understands there's a potential ratings bonanza teasing it down road. And we're not talking Nebraska-Stanford. We're talking UConn-Tennessee. "It's a great rivalry, two great coaches, at the top," said ESPN's Carol Stiff, who's in charge of programming for women's basketball.

By LORI RILEY, lriley@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, September 6, 2013

BRISTOL — ESPN, in conjunction with the Walt Disney Co., announced Friday that it would support a two-year multimillion dollar global initiative to promote Special Olympics and Unified Sports, with the objective of increasing participation worldwide to 1 million people. "To me, it's really overwhelming because of my involvement from the beginning," said Beau Doherty, Connecticut's Special Olympics president, who was instrumental in starting the Unified Sports program, in which a partner without disabilities plays on a team with an athlete with intellectual or physical disabilities.

By ALEX PUTTERMAN, aputterman@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, July 10, 2014

WEST HARTFORD - Before it can appear on television screens across America, this clip must pass inspection in an editing room in West Hartford Center. Footage of Germany's Thomas Muller and Brazil's David Luiz course across the screen, the booming voice of actor Jeffrey Wright narrating over the highlights and thumping music pulsating behind them. The clip concludes with a black screen and "Germany vs. Brazil" hovering above the word "semifinals. " "I think the music is there," Julie McGlone, ESPN's coordinating producer of creative content, tells the room.

A fan who dozed off during a Yankee-Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium back in April has filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against the team and ESPN, among others, according the website courthousenews.com . Andrew Robert Rector "claims he was filmed, and defamed, at the April 13 game between the Yankees and Red Sox, at Yankee Stadium. ... He demands $10 million in damages for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress," courthousenews reported. The site also reports that Rector's complaint says: "In the course of watching the game plaintiff napped and this opened unending verbal crusade against the napping plaintiff.